"Hm, those all sound like wonderful options," Ariel agreed, "Thorn does sound like a beautiful place, and I suppose I don't much mind the weather, it's more to do with whether there will be a place to set up. I can't really know that without going to one of the cities, but I'm just concerned that I might catch something in Black Marsh-" Ariel was starting to talk faster again, but she was interrupted by a sound behind her before she could overwhelm herself.

Ariel looked over to the clattering sound of bones hitting the ground. Meesei proudly held up a necklace that was still glowing with conjuration magic. "Ah, brilliant!" Ariel said, glancing to what used to be the thrall. She stood up, now completely distracted and walked over to the bones, kneeling down to inspect them. There was nothing left of the souls bound to it, "Amazing. To think that the enchantment could be broken so easily." Ariel looked up at Meesei with an entertained grin, "They'll not see this coming, Meesei."

---

Fendros, Janius and Lorag emerged into one of the larger chambers in the cave and stopped. After handing out weapons, they were ready to spar for a time.

As Lorag was supervising, and likely going to be coaching them, Fendros and Janius stepped up first. "Remember, try not to give an injury that'll take us out for too long." Janius reminded Fendros, pointing his mace at him. Fendros nodded in acknowledgement, then it began. They started in fighting stances, their shields ahead and their maces back, ready to swing. As they made tiny feints towards each other, Fendros tried to adjust to the weight of the mace. They were used to each others' movements from sparring previously, but not with their weight distributed as such.

Fendros swung first, stepping up and going for Janius' right shoulder with an overhead swing. Janius raised his shield and blocked the blow, and Fendros reared to follow up with a swing around and to his left. Janius took the opportunity and thrust his mace toward's Fendros' centre, forcing him to stop his planned swing and deflect Janius' blow with his shield. Janius spun his mace and put his weight into a swing on Fendros' left and Fendros responded by jumping back, the mace only swung through air.

And just like that they were back where they started, circling and feinting. "These things are harder to control than I thought," Fendros commented. Janius seemed more comfortable with the mace than he was, probably because his regular weapon was an axe with a similar distribution of weight. Fendros, however, had little experience with such weapons. As such, his form suffered.